SGensh

Larry, Why not take John's sugggestion and give Ralph a call before you make a decision. I've run his 3b on the steel base and it works fine (though we weren't beating it full out either). He's had it set up that way now for a few years so there's some perspective there. I recently helped him retrieve a very early two piece 2B and I know he plans on mounting that one on a steel plate also. If you know Steve Parker call him for his opinion also. He's run Ralph's and his 4B at work is on a traditional foundation so he'd have a good perspective to advise you from. Steve G

Mac Talis Iron, You will definately want to use two layers of Kaowool or similar insulation. If you would like a guide to the sizes to cut your insulation for the freon bottles you mentioned you can do a quick search on this forum for "freon can furnace dimensions" and you'll find a jpg. attachment of a drawing giving sizes for the pieces needed. Hope it's helpful, Steve G

Kerisman, You may want to take a look at the deburring tools offered by companies like Shaviv and Noga before you decide that the grinder is the best way of deburring your copper. The MSC catalog should show both as well as others. There are lots of unpowered hand tools that work very well and very fast for that purpose, sheet metal companies use them all the time. I've been using the same two Shaviv tools (replaceable blades) for many years myself for hole deburring. I also use a very inexpensive little 1" by 42" belt sander for a lot of edge cleanup on steel sheet metal and cut off parts. Mine happens to be an old Grainger unit I bought about thirty five years ago which is on its second second hand motor. These things are nowhere near as sophisticated as my Bader or some of the other sanders available but they are everywhere in shops and used ones are easily found in flea markets or used tool sales if you don't want to spring the few bucks for a new one. Belts (particularly in this popular size) are far cheaper than good wheels and a snap to change on most machines. Good Luck on the wheel search, Steve G

It seems to me that your method for loading the hammer with the offset gantry is pretty much the most sensible way you could have done it. I've done the same type of loading with mine, sometimes even right into the back of the pickup. I made my gantry so it would just fit inside the eight foot bed. I'm guessing that you've also figured out that when the gantry has wheels like yours does you can use it to move a load over an uneven surface pretty easily by picking it up slightly with the hoist at one end of your beam and gliding it over to the other end on the trolley. Then just set it down and reposition the gantry for the next portion of travel and repeat. If you are working on a soft surface (say a hot ashpalt driveway) with a wheeled gantry you may want to use blocking under the base when picking to spread the load better than the wheels will do- you don't want one sinking in on you especially if you are close to capacity. Thanks for sharing your inventiveness with everybody. Steve G

I don't know the volume of propane your Chile Forge will consume in an hour as it burns as pressure is not a really good indicator of flow just by itself. Let's assume you are using a two burner unit and want to run it at fairly high pressure for a good heat. In most cases of a high withdrawal flow a twenty pound barbecue tank will wind up freezing up on you fairly quickly if you use only one so the idea of using a bulk tank if you have one is appealing. Since your chances of getting any propane company to run a high pressure (anything above 11" water column to them) line into your home or garage are practically nill don't bother fighting it. Go out and buy yourself a manifolding coupler so you can join two small tanks which you can either exchange (twenty pounders) or have filled easily (thirty or forty pounders) and screw the POL fitting on your regulator into that manifold coupling and have at the forging. It's probably a lot safer to have everything indoors where you can see it and reach the tank shutoff valves rather than have them in an inaccesible location if there is any kind of problem. Buy a good quality fire extinguisher at the same time you buy the manifold coupler and keep it handy and up to date. Keep a spray botle of soap solution handy and check every connection every time you use the appliance also. For what it's worth if you do buy a manifold coupler try to avoid using anything with a copper tube connection between the two tanks. Most propane companies will use this type to connect two houshold bulk tanks which they will be filling from a delivery truck and which will not be disturbed once they are connected. Your usage will be different as you will need to disconnect and move the tanks to have them refilled and you could easily kink a copper tube when doing so leading to a weak spot, crack, or leak. A manifold for our type of use should have a flex hose between the two tanks. Good luck with the new forge.

AJ, I'm a big fan of simplicity when it's appropriate. That's why I use a spring return shuttle valve. In my opinion it's more important to achieve overall good control than to have a lot of extra adjustments that need to be fiddled with or extra parts to add complications. (Again just my opinion, no intention of starting any arguments.) I think that one of the bigggest control problems with most Kinyons is the non linear performance of the ball valve and it's usual location way down the line from the shuttle and therefore the cylinder it's trying to control. Along with this is the fact that most hammers seem to be plumbed with air lines of too small a diameter leading to pressure and flow restrictions. All that leads to sluggish performance which costs both power and control. If you look at that PDF I posted you'll notice I suggest relatively large diameter lines (including the pilot valve line). A hammer with good flow and little restriction will be a "snappy" runner- it will accelerate the ram quickly and just as quickly try and turn it around. Any of you who have run one of John Larson's Iron Kiss hammers will recognize exactly what I am talking about. You don't need to do anything special to get a single blow out of those hammers- just stomp the treadle and quickly let off. One Bang; and variable in force once you get the hang of it. My Kinyon style works the same way and everybody elses can too with very simple upgrades to valving and plumbing. Of course like anyhting else you do develop a feeling for how you work the throttle or treadle for consistant control. Most of us aren't going to walk up to an unfamiliar hammer and get it perfect right off. Steve G

Here's a diagram for the simplest form of the Kinyon style hammer. The part numbers are immaterial but it is important to have as much air flow as possible through the valves so be sure whatever you use has the largest CV or flow rate you can find using your rources of supply. If my opinion you have good flow and a properly sized cylinder for your ram weight most of the "improvements" are uneeded. Lots of these hammers have been built with very small diameter cylinders which exagerates the difference between the rod and plain sides of the cylinder, it's better to use one of relatively large diameter and moderate rod diameter for more balanced action. The original Kinyon plans call for a ball valve at the end of a very long tube as the throttle, replace that ball valve with a butterfly valve which is designed for throttling applications instead and mount it as close to the main valve as you can. Use a linkage from your pedal or treadle to the throttle valve. The improvement in control is quite noticable. The hammer these controls are on has a ninety pound ram and uses a three inch (nonstandard) cylinder. It does single blows reliably and runs fast also. Good luck with your project. Steve G valvedia1.pdf

That's a nice looking anvil. I have a 400 pounder also and use it as my main forging anvil. You may not know it yet but there is a very good possibility that the feet of your anvil are tapped with or cored for 5/8-11 threads from underneath. Lay the anvil on its side or lift it on a hoist and look for the holes which may well be full of junk right now and need cleaning out. (Hint, when later style Fisher's (without the v in the back) don't have lugs look for the mounting holes on the bottom. I've seen it on several.) If you really find that you need to fix those cuts on the horn remember that the top of it is not cast iron but a thick tool steel insert. Don't try and weld it like cast iron or with cast iron rods. The best thing in most cases is to not weld at all but if you do just preheat very little and use a mig welder with mild steel wire for a quick pass and sand it to shape with a paper disc on a grinder. I think you will love this anvil the more you use it. I'll add a picture of mine bolted down on it's fabricated stand. The stand has it's hollow center area filled and packed with the chips from my cold saw for extra mass. Good luck with it. Steve G

Nathan does in fact make some beautiful hammers but he also helps folks learn to make their own. He just gave a hmmer making class at my shop this weekend. Two seperate one day sessions of eight students each yielded sixteen happy blacksmiths with hand made heat treated and handled hammers of several designs. If any of you are in an area where he gives a class I highly recomment it. Nathan provided the blanks, handles, and instruction. Each student provided the labor and enthusiasm. Nathan and I struck for some of the participants and others worked as teams taking turns providing striking for each other. Each student at this event paid only seventy five dollars for the instruction and the materials which was a terrific bargain(only because he doesn't charge enough. Here are a couple of pictures of the setup, Nathan instructing, and the eight hammers made by the class on Sunday. Steve G

I've been at a blacksmithing event where an anvil shoot was part of the festivities and found it kind of fun. I don't find myself horrified by the idea or yet understand how Abana overreacted to such an activity. I'm a smith who uses old tools and old anvils in my work and I like to preserve them as well as I can. I wouldn't use one of my own shop anvils for that use but I wouldn't stick one on shelf just to look at either. If proper safety precautions are in place why not shoot an anvil dedicated to that purpose- is it any worse than some other activities we applaud? Not all wrought anvils were made entirely by teams of strikers using no machinery- no sensible manufacturer eschewed water powered trip hammers and later steam hammers when they became available. Does any one remember the composite painting on the jacket of Anvils in America- while several men were shown controlling the anvil being made it was being forged under a steam hammer. The largest anvil I've personally forged is tiny; it only weighed about six pounds and even it was forged under a friends little giant at a demo when the strikers didn't show.

Chuck, Steve Parker forged a new set of arms for Jim Fecteu's Beaudry about two years ago. Jim then had them heat treated by a firm relatively local to him. I don't remember what alloy Steve used but you might contact him to find out and get any tips he has to share. You can probably find Stev'es contact info on the UMBA website or you can contact me and I'll get you in touch. Steve G

I'll add a smaller version of the attachment from the above post. I hope this will help. Steve G

As I was preparing a sheet of dimensions to assist the purchasers of my burners with making their own small forges I thought that some of the readers here might also find this useful. If you use these dimensions for your ceramic fiber lining you will need to roll each layer of batting tightly in order to get it into the furnace body after first placing the two end discs into the chamber. Be sure to place the seams in the area under where the brick (or kiln shelf) will go and stagger the two seams slightly to each side of the center line. Smooth each layer of isulation into place and keep the "ceiling" a smooth arc. You will need to wiggle the brick floor into the the refractory to compress the wool slightly. In a small forge like this no other support is needed under the floor. (I've been traveling one around for over a year with the original brick and lining and no problems.) If you decide to coat the wool with a rigidizer (recommended) it helps to slightly dampen the wool and use a brush whth the handle cut off short to apply it. Steve G When I checked this post I realized that the .jpg image attached comes up too large so I will add a smaller version in another post. More to learn. Steve G

Congratulations George, That looks great. Now let's see that rod with a faggot weld on the end or made into a ring- grin. I'm sure your are going to like it a lot. While you need to maintain a decent size opening for exhaust you may get a slightly faster and more economical heat if you add a half door at the top of the front opening. Just don't close off too much of the area or you'll do more harm than good. Also don't forget about convenience bends when you are are trying to fit bigger stuff into that moderately sized forge (see maddog, I didn't call it small). As an example, you can turn a bigger ring into an oval and weld it in that chamber then take it back to shape later. Have fun, Steve G

Mike, Try a call to Penn Stainless in Quakertown PA. If they don't have what you need in metric they will know where to get it. 800-222-6144. You could also try Parker Steel who only handle metric sizes but I don't know if they would have your flanges and fitings. Steve G

George, I'm adding a picture of a freon can forge which is very similar in size to what you are building. This particular one was one of five used at the Memphis Abana conference. It's OD is 9" and it is 12" long. Look under the flip door and you will see a hard refractory brick used as the floor (over the wool). Those are 4 1/2" by 9" by 1 1/4" and fit very nicely in the space left when you line with two inches of Kaowool. You might consider one for your floor if you are planning on welding or even if you just want a very durable floor. Frosty's point about coating the wool is a good one. It will last longer and be less subject to tears if coated plus it may help a little with reflectivity especially if you use a top coat of a high emmisivity coating like ITC 100 as your last layer after the rigidizer. I'm sure Bob will exlain this all as you go along. You shouldn't have any trouble welding in your new forge if its coated and has a reasonably efficient burner. These forges used a single one of my PNB burners (1" OD, app 3/4 bore) and they used them to teach forge welding at the conference. I was using one earlier today tapering pipe and forge welding the ends shut and never went over about eight pounds on my Goss regulator's gauge. (Bob actually saw the very ratty one I was using today when we met out at Tipton, I bought one of his very nice sandbags there.) Steve G

Mathew, If you are only going to run one forge at a time you don't even need to buy another regulator. Just make up a simple setup with a short piece of hose from your regulator to a tee and couple up both forges to the single regulator at your tank. Just remember that you will have gas pressure in the hoses to both forges unless you add valves at the split. At the Abana conference in Memphis I ran some of the forges in the teaching station as teed pairs from a single 100 pound cylinder with no problems. (Both my single burners and the two burner BAM forges were hooked up this way.) Steve G

Hollis, My burners are made from 1" OD DOM tubing rather than pipe but they would be roughly equivelent to 3/4 pipe burners. I used the doubl elayer of 1" as I already had it rather than buying 2" board. The doors on this unit are stainless but the body was made of plain steel sheet since the first two were just protoypes and test units. I'm just about to do a short run of them in all stainless for some orders. I'd love to have one of the all stainless ones to take to Quad States but I won't so I'll probably bring this one along. Maddog and Phil, I've heard folks say that the increased surface area of the rubble provides more reflective surface for the IR. I don't know if it's true. I do know that one of the high reflectivity coatings on the refractory cetainly helps and can give some forges the boost they neeed to weld. (ITC 100) for example Grant, I like the little forge. I think you've shared that before. Is it naturally aspirated or use a blown burner? For Shelly's I used two of my naturally aspirated burners in a similar way shooting up at the edge of half a kaowool lined 20lb cylinder propane. The cylinder was pivoted at one edge to open for loading since she was working with long lengths of 3"+ tubing. I don't have access to a pic right now. I really liked working out of Nathan Roberstons similar forge and plan on playing around some more with the configuration. Of course you're going to obsolete them all if you can get that induction forge cost much lower (grin) .Steve G

Hollis, I also built a Sandia forge years ago. A group of us made four together. Three worked similarly to your yours- OK but not great; one of the four for some reason worked much better but it still wouldn't weld. I modified mine with new burners using a venturi throat and a low pressure blower passing air through a different type of heat exchnger to try and still get a recuperative effect. It worked pretty well but when I wore it out and needed a new one I took a slightly different approach. I always liked the rigid board insulation so I worked with that but I wanted to get rid of the flat top. I made a box similar in shape to the Sandia but with a simple pitched roof so the burners would be mounted at an angle and I could have a little more volume too. I had originally planned on buying a couple of T Rexs to put in it and did buy one to try out. Since then though I've developed my own burner that I like better so that's what I'm using now. Two of these will take the new unit to forge welding temperatures. I brought the unit in the attached pictures to Abana Memphis this year where Steve Parker and Phil Cox worked out of it. I beleive Phil did some welding in it in his demo though I never got to see it- he did ask if it was OK to use flux in it. I use a kiln shelf in the botom for that but I'll be switching to a castable floor plate soon. For what it's worth I als made an up firing furnace for Shelly Thomas to use for twisting her large pipes and it burned finein that orientation; the burners don't particularly care which way they are facing but you can get junk down the up facing tubes if you don't plan a way to protect them so if anyone plans to make such an arrangement be sure the burners are accessable for cleaning.

Do you guys make the vessels too or are you in the process heating equipment business? I'm glad to see there is still some viable manufacturing going on in Trenton when so many of the old factories are empty and decaying. I hope it continues well for you. Steve G

I agree with Hollis though I don't have a mechanical hammer. I use Mobil Vactra Oil #2 Way Oil for the guides of my home built air hammer and those on my fly press too. Of course I already keep a supply on hand for my mills and lathes anyway. Steve G

E.F. Thuman, Nice burners! Is your business by any chance located near Ringoes in Hunterdon County? I'm in Rosemont and have been working on burners much smaller than yours- with much smaller propane requirements too. Those pictures are fun to see. Steve G

Robert, I know it's easy to get frustratred with a project when it's not quite working out right but there will be a solution (or several) to your burner problems. I'd suggest that you may want to take a look at a very useful series of one or two page articles on burners which appeared in Process Heating and which you can view on the web. They will help you get a clear view of several types of burners as they have been used in industrial applications and perhaps that backround knowledge will help you to toubleshoot your own burners. There are simplified but clear diagrams and explanations of how and why certain types were developed. It's well worth the few minutes you'll spend running through them. You can find them by doing a Google search for "process heating buner history 101". Thomas' suggestion of the free or almost free heater vent fan is a good one if you don't want to spend for one of Grant's. While they don't look impressive these units have high static pressure which is what you need in forge blower. I''ve passed along a few of these to other smiths and they have had good success with them. Jymm Hoffman's gas forges use more than one outlet with a single blower so you should be able to run your three tubes from a single one also. Take a look at Jymm's system which works very well, it's not a bad model to follow for a blown forge burner. I've built both blown and atmospheric burners and each has it's place. There is no reason that you couldn't heat your funace with atmosperic's also but whichever type you've decided it's worth a quick look at the articles above. (As an atmospheric application example a single PNB atmospheric burner in my freon can forges will burn from about 1 pound indicated on my Goss regulator guages up to over 40, average forging pressure is about 5 to 7 and it welds at 10 with no flare used in the forge. In the two burner it works similarly once up to temp but starts a little more tempermentally. It gets very hot- this is the forge Steve Parker and Phil Cox used at the Abana Conference)

I'll attempt to add a couple of photos of a fairly simple front door configuration I've been using on the small freon can furnaces I've been building. On my larger furnaces I like guillotine type doors. This is basically just a half door which covers the top of the front opening of these small furnaces (opening is a bit more than 5" in diameter). The door is made of a piece of rigid refractory (Insboard here) held in place with two simple sheet metal parts which are screwed to the single hinge. If you copy this idea slice a groove in the board for the sheet metal flange with a hack saw or something similar so it doesn't split. If you don't have an easy source for rigid refractory you could sandwich ceramic fiber blanket over a sheet metal door instead to do the same thing. You may notice that the hinge pin is extended to provide a handle for opening and shutting the door. I like to use stainless for the handle since it has a fairly low heat transfer rate and you can operate it with a bare hand even after hours of operation. The door in the upper half of the opening relflects a lot of heat back into the forge which would otherwise escape while still allowing enough exhaust area for good burner efficiency. I just use a small opening in the back of these with a plug made of kaowool or such. The furnace in the photos is the test mule in my shop and has been running with the same uncoated lining and base brick since October of 2009. That's the third piece of door refractory in hundreds of hours of operation by several users. You asked about furnace size so I will say that I was surprised to find that I use this tiny forge more than I use my larger two burner, it's just so practical and economical for a lot of work. I hope this helps. Steve G (Glenn, I hope this post is OK as I do sell a few burners and forges and I don't want to violate the rules. Please feel free to delete it if I'm out of line. Thanks, Steve)

Phil's got this right but not just about tire hammers or even hammers in general. Lots of guys will build a base for a hammer or a vise or something else out of what they think of as a "stiff" plate something like 1/2" or so and then weld a stalk (tube, I beam segment, or such somewherr near the middle on top of the plate. All of the weld distortion on the top of the plate results in a convex curved base plate almost garaunteed to rock eventually. (something likely to happen even if the plate stayed straight as most floors aren't flat either). I make a lot of stands for museum objects and it's been my practice for years to make any base in such a way that the stalk or shaft penetrates the base and is welded under rather than on top of the base so any distortion creates a very slightly conical base with it's outer edges lower than the center and therefore more stable. If you are going to weld to a relatively thin plate only on the top surface or work with any less than flat surface take Phil's very subtle advice and shim the mounting points so that the object can't rock. If your base plate is thin enough that it will deflect (say under a hammer's impact) shim the point directly under the upright first then shim the hold down points so that it will remain solid and steady. None of this of course addresses the issue of impact and a seperate foundation. Just my opinion of course- Steve G